


Collateral

by Marsalias



Series: Connatural [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Assassination, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Phic Phight, Phic Phight 2019, With a real gun, someone gets shot, the ghosts like Danny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 20:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19838275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: Prompts courtesy of charcoalhawk and thecommrade. Much to Danny's annoyance, Vlad has decided to give him a scholarship to a distant, and distinguished, boarding school. He has decided to announce this at a press conference. Someone else has decided that it's time for Vlad Masters to die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is another fic I'm moving over from FFN. Unlike Mortified, it is completely finished. I would still really appreciate feedback, though. :)

"Can you be any more awful?" asked Danny, tugging at the collar of the suit his parents had forced him into. Finding loosening it to be a useless, futile endeavor, he instead put his energy into glaring at the person ultimately responsible for his current discomfort.

"Mind the scary-eyes, little badger," said Vlad Masters, the billionaire tech-mogul mayor of Amity Park who also happened to be Danny's arch-nemesis, as he adjusted his tie and hair in a mirror. "It wouldn't do for the public to think that you were possessed, now would it? Not to mention the reaction of that new accessory of yours."

If possible, Danny's glare became even less amused. "They wouldn't know possessed if it smacked them in the face." He fiddled with the white and green 'watch' locked around his wrist. The suit hadn't been the only thing his parents had forced him into. It wasn't as bad as the Specter Deflector, but the Fenton Watch was remarkably unforgiving of even the smallest expression of ghostly power.

Vlad smirked and turned away from the mirror. "Likely not," he said, smugly.

"You're the worst person ever," said Danny.

The two of them were currently sitting in a small, but well-appointed, room in Amity Park's town hall. The room was a sort of dressing room, included so that the mayor and city council could get ready for important public appearances in peace, even when they couldn't go home.

Vlad was about to have an 'important' press conference, one where he announced a new 'charitable enterprise.' Really, it was just a new and exciting way for Vlad to make Danny's life difficult with his ludicrous amount of wealth and fame.

"Oh, yes, I'm just terrible for wanting to give you a decent education for _free._ " Vlad turned, a disgustingly self-assured smile on his face. "Why, anyone would just be _horrified_."

Danny pressed his lips together, and clenched his fists. "You just want to make it hard for me to protect Amity Park."

"Let's be honest, Daniel," said Vlad. "The only thing you're doing with your hero act is stroking your own ego."

"And you'd know all about that," said Danny, bristling. He had to tamp down _hard_ on his natural impulse to wake his core and tap into his ghost powers.

"I never claimed to be perfect," said Vlad airily, relaxing into a chair. "You, on the other hand, claim to be, what was it? Protecting Amity Park? You're only fooling yourself, Daniel. You haven't protected anyone you haven't put in danger first."

Danny's eyes flared, and then he yelped with pain as the Fenton Watch zapped him. He hissed through his teeth, and rubbed his wrist. It was ironic. His ghostly mannerisms showed through more strongly when he was forced to suppress the physical aspects of his ghost half.

There was a sharp rap on the door.

"Mr Masters?" said Vlad's secretary (who looked disturbingly similar to Danny's mom). The door eased open with a squeak. "They're ready for you now."

Vlad rose to his feet smoothly. Danny's scramble was much more ungainly, and Danny had to remind himself not to compare himself to Vlad. Vlad was thirty years older than he was, and a massive jerk. Comparing himself- No, comparing Fenton to Vlad would only result in self-esteem issues. Comparing Phantom to Plasmius was, unfortunately, often necessary.

Ugh. His life was a mess.

"Come along then, Daniel," said Vlad, cheerfully. "We can't keep our public waiting."

Danny grumbled under his breath, only every third word was in English. He trailed behind Vlad, lagging as much as he possibly could with the secretary clicking along right behind him. What was her name again? She was a relative newcomer to Amity Park, an import from one of Vlad's businesses, and Danny had yet to figure her out.

They walked out of the town hall's wide double doors, Vlad waving at his oh-so-adoring fans and Danny squinting against the sudden bright sunlight. Danny felt like a goblin, like a little gremlin, like some kind of cave dweller. He wanted nothing so much as to crawl into a dark corner somewhere and haunt it. The space under his bed sounded very nice, right now, or perhaps his closet, or the crawlspace under the stairs. He wanted to sink through the ground, he wanted to disappear.

He forced down the ghost inside him. It wouldn't do to get electrocuted by the stupid watch, or, worse, actually become intangibility and invisible.

They walked to a platform that had been put up in front of the town hall a couple of months ago, so that Vlad could issue his proclamations in style. Danny made an effort, he really did, to look presentable, to look like people would _expect_ him to look, based on the face value of Vlad's announcements. He even waved at his parents, who were in the front row of spectators. He was pretty sure that he was failing to appear even the slightest bit enthusiastic, though.

He sighed, and tried to pay attention to Vlad's speech, now just trying to ignore all the news crews that had come to film the billionaire's 'big announcement.'

"Blah blah blah blah blah," Vlad was saying. "Big scholarship blah blah blah. Going to make Danny go to a stuck up private boarding school on the other side of the country. Blah blah blah. Opportunities for troubled youth. Blah blah. I'm secretly evil. Blah"

Okay, so Danny wasn't _really_ listening. But who could blame him? He wasn't used to events like this, and he already knew what Vlad was supposed to be saying. He'd repeated it a Danny and his parents often enough.

Danny, unwillingly, let his eyes wander nervously over all the news crews. There were some big names in there, which didn't quell his anxiety at all. The way all their cameras were pointed at him, the lenses flashing in the sunlight, the sleek, tech-adorned bodies gleaming, reminded him uncomfortably of weaponry, specifically anti-ghost weaponry.

He wrenched his eyes away, choosing instead to examine the buildings across the road from the town hall. They were some of the tallest in Amity Park, and, unfortunately, also some of the most boring. Just like Vlad. Ancients, but he liked to hear himself talk.

Danny's eyes caught on a strange shape sticking out from a window on the second floor from the top of the central building. He frowned softly at it, trying to identify it. Was it some kind of flagpole, or..?

His eyes went wide and he threw himself sideways into Vlad.

.

.

.

The moment Daniel impacted Vlad's side, Vlad realized that he should have expected some kind of trouble from the truculent boy. Really, though, what did he plan to accomplish by assaulting Vlad in public, on _television?_ He never thought things through, honestly.

Now Vlad was faced with a choice. Daniel was far too light and, with only human strength available to him, too weak to _actually_ knock Vlad over, so Vlad was in control of the outcome of the situation. He could either play it off as an enthusiastic hug, he was a a juncture in his speech where that reaction might have been expected from Daniel if he wasn't insistent on being so stubbornly ungrateful, or he could take the fall.

He had no time to decide.

Oh, cheesecake, he might as well go along with whatever would cause the most uncertainty and distress in Daniel's life. He was, as the child said, an evil jerk, after all.

As he began his dramatic fall, he heard a sharp crack, and his vision was sprayed with red.

He hit the wood planking of the platform with a thump, and looked down at Daniel, who was covered in red, with annoyance. Had Daniel brought some kind of dye-filled balloon up on stage with him as a poorly advised prank?

But even as that thought finished crossing his mind, he knew that it was false. The brain he was so proud of was putting together the pieces.

Maddie screamed.


	2. Chapter 2

The very first thing Vlad did, once his brain got past the impossibility, the ridiculousness, of the situation, was crush the watch. It was difficult to do. It was designed to keep ghosts from tampering with it. The shock burned his hand. Still, it was nothing compared to the raw, red band wrapped around Daniel's wrist, or the- No, he wouldn't think about that, not yet. Daniel's wounds would heal much faster without something suppressing his powers.

And he would heal. He had to heal. Vlad refused to consider any other possibility.

There were calls for police. For an ambulance. Vlad cursed internally, moving to cradle Daniel, and splitting off a pair of invisible duplicate and sending it rushing to the hospital.

Vlad and Daniel's physiology differed significantly from the norm, even when they were in human form. Not so much as to be called impossible, they weren't completely outside the human range, but enough to be remarked upon, enough to throw up warning flags and to attract attention. These were not things that Vlad wanted. More pressingly, a doctor trying to normalize their vitals might do more harm than good.

Therefore, Vlad had maneuvered a few doctors and nurses of his acquaintance into various positions in the local hospitals and clinics, just in case he, or Daniel, happened to wind up at one of them. Doctors that he kept on his secret payrolls. Doctors he could count on to keep a secret. Of course, he also had a good number of doctors on his _public_ payroll, private physicians, specialists, but they weren't always available. Most of them were strewn across the country, placed strategically in cities Vlad had to visit frequently.

Vlad's first duplicate had been sent to corral those doctors into useful positions via creative overshadowing.

In theory, there was doctor-patient confidentiality, but Vlad hadn't had the best experiences with the morality of doctors over his long, post-accident hospital stay. He preferred to rely on human greed, rather than human principles.

Yet, there was only one of these many, many doctors he truly trusted. That was the doctor he wanted tending to Daniel, and wanted tending to Daniel now. Or at least as quickly as possible. Vlad's second duplicate had been sent to fetch him.

But at the moment- At the moment, Daniel was bleeding out on Vlad's suit and the stage, a deep, ugly furrow carved into his temple.

Head wounds always looked worse than they really were, Vlad reminded himself as Maddie vaulted up onto the stage, past the policemen now screening it and trying to pull Vlad _off_ of it. As if a normal bullet could _actually_ kill him, or even seriously hurt him. He could have very well phased through the bullet. He _would_ have phased through the bullet instinctively, unlike Daniel under the influence of that moronic 'ghost-proof' watch.

Maddie was performing first aid on Daniel, having laid him flat on the stage. The police were getting awfully insistent. Didn't they know who he was? Didn't they know..?

Daniel couldn't die. He _couldn't._ No. Vlad refused to let it happen. Besides, Daniel was a hybrid, just like him. If mundane weapons, if a bullet couldn't kill Vlad, then it certainly couldn't kill Daniel, either.

But death was a many-layered thing, whispered a treacherous voice in the back of his head. Brain death was a thing, and sometimes people just never woke up.

The sharp whine of an ambulance broke through his thoughts, and Vlad realized how he had let the world just... Rush away from him.

Now... The best thing to do... The best thing to do...

Stand aside. That would be the best. Stand aside for now. That's what he would do. Let Daniel be taken care of. Yes.

.

.

.

Vlad knew that he didn't look his best. Normally, he wouldn't even dream of being out and about looking so... disheveled. But he didn't trust hospitals. One nosy lab technician would all it took to have the GIW crawling all over the hospital.

Alright, that wasn't quite true, Vlad had put a number of city ordinances limiting the GIW into effect, but still. Vlad had to keep an eye on things. Both as the mayor, and as the only other half-ghost in town.

No matter what the police said. He thought it would be unlikely for his assassin to target him here, in the hospital, in any event. No matter what the police said. He had to say.

Even if that meant being civil to Jack. Some things in life and death were more important than revenge. Not many. But some.

In his current state, split between half a dozen duplicates, he barely noticed the oaf, anyway.

A doctor, escorted by a police officer, entered the small waiting room where Vlad and the Fenton family had been sequestered.

"He's stable," said the doctor. "He was lucky. The bullet did quite a bit of damage to his skull, and we had to remove several bone fragments that posed a risk to his brain, but the bullet did not impact the brain itself. He has a concussion and some swelling, but," he favored the family with a reassuring smile, "we know how to deal with those. However, the bullet seems to have been coated with something that he wasn't reacting well to. We cleaned the wound, and that seemed to stop the reaction, but we're not sure what it was."

"What kind of reaction?" asked Vlad, his voice pitched unnaturally high. His duplicate had missed that somehow. How had it missed that?

The doctor glanced at Maddie and Jack, keeping up the pretense that Vlad wasn't the one who paid most of his bills. Maddie nodded, movements tight.

"His blood was... fizzing. Fizzing on contact with the, ah, bullet fragments. Fizzing green. I've never seen anything quite like it." He looked at the police officer. "When your people find the bullet, we'd appreciate if you tested it. We'd like to know what the substance was, in case it could cause other complications."

"But he's stable now," said Jack, unusually quiet.

"Yes," said the doctor. "We're watching him very closely, though. Head injuries can be unpredictable."

"Can we see him?" asked Jazz.

The doctor seemed to consider the question, then nodded. "One at a time," he said. "Family members only." He looked at Vlad with an expression that mixed genuine regret and professional terror. "Sorry, it's a hospital rule."

.

.

.

"Found it!" exclaimed the officer.

"Good! Don't touch it!" shouted a detective from the other side of the stage.

"I'm not a rookie."

"Doesn't mean you can't make rookie mistakes," said the detective, jogging the long way around the stage. "Hm. Deflected quite a bit off the victim." The detective leaned closer, examining the bullet lodged neatly between the planks of the stage. "Must have still had a lot of momentum." He squinted. "Hey, does this look green to you?"


	3. Chapter 3

Wherever Danny was, it was dark and quiet. Or perhaps it was simply empty. Danny didn't know, couldn't tell, and was having some trouble forming coherent thoughts, let alone pondering existential questions, thank you very much.

He was just enjoying the peace, just enjoying the sensation of floating, just enjoying the respite from the pounding on the other side of the veil of his consciousness.

It was quiet here. Like space. He liked space. The infinite and untapped void. He floated.

He wasn't thinking. He was as unmarred as the darkness.

But a question began to press on him, and the pounding grew to a throb that teetered at the edge of pain. He held on to ignorance, to ignorance of ignorance, unwilling to face anything that might bring him closer to that.

How had he gotten here?

"You took a bullet for Vlad, that's how."

The voice, unexpected, novel, and familiar, grounded him. Like with any charged thing being grounded, there was a shock, lightning and frost radiating away from him, describing a framework landscape of shifting green electricity and blue-white traceries of ice imposed on a background blacker than the darkest night.

Danny dropped, dizzy and in pain. He knew this landscape, but he couldn't place it. There were more important things, anyway. He twisted, and came face-to-face with himself.

He was sitting, reclining, really, on a graceful curve of flowering ice, in Phantom form, his legs fading and blurring into a spectral tail. Somehow, this didn't really surprise Danny.

He narrowed his eyes.

"I think I would remember that," he said.

"Normally, yes," said Danny, shrugging. "But you went ahead and caught the bullet with your head, so..." He tilted his head. "You know, you're lucky you have a backup memory, otherwise you'd never remember it at all."

"Why are you saying it like it's all my fault?" asked Danny. "You're me, too, aren't you?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I'll blame myself, too."

Danny groaned, and rubbed his eyes, which wound up being really weird, because he could still see everyone around him.

"Ugh," he said. "Does this mean I'm dead? Is this, like, purgatory or something?"

"Not any more than usual," said Danny.

"So... What happened, exactly?"

"Vlad was being Vlad, trying to get us out of the way by giving us an 'opportunity-'"

"What opportunity?"

"Scholarship to some weird boarding school thing out of state."

"Great." He curled up. He felt oddly delicate and small.

"Yeah. Anyway, he decided to announce it as a giant public speech, we saw a gun sticking out of a window on the other side of the street, we pushed him out of the way, and- oops!- unconsciousness."

"Stupid Obsession," he muttered into his knees.

The other Danny snorted. "Let's be honest. We would have done it anyway, Obsession or no. That's kind of why we have that Obsession. It's why Dash picks on us so much. We'd always get in between him and his victims."

"There's a difference between taking a punch and taking a bullet. And for _Vlad?_ I could see getting shot for Jazz, or Mom and Dad, or Sam and Tuck, or Valerie, or Mr Lancer, or, well, a lot of other people, but _Vlad?_ Gross."

"I guess we'll just have to admit that we don't hate him as much as we think we do."

"I _guess,_ " said Danny.

"Or that we actually care about him. Even if he is a jerk, he's still, you know," Danny's voice had grown very soft, "like me."

"We don't have to admit anything," said Danny, sulking. "So, we're what, unconscious? Where?"

"Hospital, I think," he said, serenely, as if a sufficiently attentive and talkative doctor or nurse couldn't doom him to a lifetime of torture disguised as scientific inquiry. "I think we might have just come out of surgery."

"How are you so calm about this?"

"I'm not. I'm you, remember."

Silence.

"Oh. Yeah. So... I didn't really question this earlier, but how is this working?"

"I don't know. Probably has something to do with how our brains and our core work together, and this is some kind of weird bootstrapping, rebooting thing. We definitely have brain damage, after everything."

Danny shivered. "Yeah, it's a good thing we have a brain backup."

"Backups of everything."

"Yep."

 _Awkward_ silence.

"We have an eta on, um, consciousness?"

"Nope. Not like we've done this particular injury before."

"True."

"Never had to go to a hospital before, either."

"I think maybe there were a couple of times we _should_ have gone to the hospital."

"Probably."

"Where are we supposed to be, anyway?" asked Danny. "It looks familiar."

"Well, you already know you're in a hospital." A pause. "And this is a dream. I know that's not what you mean, but I'm as in the dark as you are." Danny snickered, and gestured around him. "Literally."

"Yeah, okay." He looked around, trying to find something more solidly familiar, some landmark he could identify. It was hard, when over half of it flickered and glitched like old computer wire work. But something overhead caught the edge of his eye, and he looked up. "Woah."

Danny looked up, too. "Oh. Yeah. Woah."

"You didn't know about this?" he asked.

"Hey, you're surprised, too."

"Surprised might be the wrong word. We must have known this was here, at some level."

"Look at all those stars."

Danny blinked. "We're in Amity Park."

"Of course we are. How could we be anywhere else?"

They had shifted closer to each other as they angled for better views of the stars.

"It's home. It's ours."

A terrible thought lanced through Danny's mind.

"We can't protect it like this," he said. "Unconscious. We need to wake up."

"We can't."

"We don't know how?"

"So what do we do?"

The space wasn't so quiet anymore. It was filled with a chorus of whispers and echos, Danny's worries and anxieties bouncing back to him. His head hurt. His neck ached, his shoulders burned. He could feel bruises.

Then he was buried in the darkness once more, the most distant lightning of his mental landscape flickering and going out.

He gasped, curled on the ground, intertwined with his other half. His other half, Phantom, hissing.

"No good, no good, no good."

He focused on breathing. He couldn't do so much as twitch a finger. He couldn't even come to the surface of his own consciousness. Couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't help, couldn't protect. It hurt, and he knew it hurt his ghost more. He could feel it hurting his ghost more. He was his ghost and this hurt and he was going out of his mind not knowing his mind. Dreams. He couldn't live on dreams. No one could, and he could feel himself slipping deeper. He had reached too far, too quickly, and he hadn't even realized what he was doing.

He hummed. "We'll heal."

He whimpered. "Not fast enough. There has to be something we can do."

A laugh. "And we tried to say we wouldn't have jumped in front of Vlad?"

"This is different."

"Maybe we know that and maybe we don't."

"Something we can do..."

"Maybe there's something we can do."


	4. Chapter 4

Youngblood was _bored._ Super bored. Mega bored. Ginormously bored. Bored to infinity. So bored that even Bones couldn't un-bore him. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. He didn't like being bored.

So he decided to go bother Phantom.

Phantom was a lot older than him (or a lot younger than him, depending on how he counted), and could be kind of _weird_ sometimes (though Youngblood understood that was because he was a halfa, and therefore kind of sick, like Youngblood used to be), but he was good for a game or two, or a laugh, or a straight-up fight. It really depended on how polite Youngblood was feeling, and how patient Phantom was feeling. Or, from another angle, how bratty Youngblood was, and how territorial Phantom was. No matter which way it played out, Phantom was never boring. Unlike _some_ people.

Youngblood flew to Phantom's portal, giggling madly, already planning out his next game. Giggling madly. Like a mad scientist. Ooh, that was a good idea. He could be a mad scientist and Bones could be Frankenstein! Or maybe Bones would be Igor, and they could make a Frankenstein!

"Hey, Bones, do you think you're more a Frankenstein or an Igor?"

Bones sighed, already shifting into a bony hunchback. "I assume you're speaking of Frakenstein's monster, so I would have to say Igor, master."

"Isn't Frankenstein the monster?"

"No, Frankenstein was the scientist, master. The monster wasn't named."

"Well, that's stupid," complained Youngblood. "Why didn't anyone ever name him? He was the coolest ever! Or he should have named himself, like ghosts do!"

"That's part of the book," started Bones.

"The _book!?_ Boring!"

They had reached the portal. Phantom's portal itself wasn't safe to go through. His _parents_ had sealed it tight, and had stuck a lot of guns and junk onto it. Not to mention the house itself. On the other hand, smaller, temporary, natural portals to Amity Park spawned near it literally all the time. Bones and Youngblood didn't have to wait long for one to appear.

"Maybe I won't be a mad scientist," said Youngblood, after they had gone through. "Maybe I'll paint on the walls. I always wanted to be an artist, you know." Youngblood had always wanted to be lots of things. He vaguely remembered wanting to be a dinosaur when he grew up, but growing up was for losers. "But the _adults_ didn't recognize my genius. Whenever I drew they were all like 'oh, no, you can't draw on the walls!'"

"I see," said Bones, returning to his favorite parrot shape.

Two cans of spray paint popped into Youngblood's hands, his outfit transmuting into a childish image of an artist, complete with a beret. A too-wide, too sharp smile spread over Youngblood's face. He couldn't wait until Phantom showed up, so that he could spray the teenager in the face. He could just imagine the look on Phantom's face. It would be _hilarious_.

.

.

.

Two hours later, and Phantom still hadn't shown up. Neither had his weirdo parents, or his friends. Which was weird, and also bleh. Boring. He'd entertained himself with painting for a while, and with avoiding the coppers, who couldn't see him, and that red girl with the hoverboard who also couldn't see him even though she was obviously a teenager, but those games had limited utility.

He wanted to play with _Phantom._ That's why he had come in the first place.

He floated in the air over a building that was now tastefully decorated in dinosaurs and superheros, pouting. There had been fewer policemen than there usually were, too, and the red girl had seemed especially upset (and incompetent), now that he thought about it. His eyes narrowed. Youngblood might have been immature, but he wasn't stupid.

He floated higher, scanning the town.

"Hey, Bones, help me find where all the police are."

"The police?" asked the skeletal parrot. "Aye aye, captain." He spiraled up even further than Youngblood, his circles growing ever wider as Youngblood spun beneath.

"Thar she is!" said Bones.

"You don't have to do that," said Youngblood, flying in the indicated direction. "We're not playing pirates right now."

"If you say so," said Bones, swooping down alongside Youngblood.

They reached the part of the town that had the tallest and fanciest buildings. Police and cameramen were swarming all over them. There was yellow tape everywhere, especially in front of a stately building with columns.

It was very exciting.

But it wasn't terribly informative. Most of the police officers and detectives were only talking about what was going on right then, about what they were doing, or what they had found. They weren't talking about what had _happened,_ which was what Youngblood was interested in. Because this had to be related to why Phantom wasn't showing up. It didn't look like it had been a ghost fight, at least not a typical one. There wasn't enough damage, and Youngblood remembered enough about the human world to know that its buildings and structures didn't repair themselves. In fact, as far as Youngblood could tell, there wasn't any damage at all. But then, what ghost fight _was_ typical, especially when Phantom was involved? When was anything involving Phantom typical? He was a weirdo from a family of weirdos in a town of weirdos.

What a weirdo.

"Perhaps we should listen in on one of the reporters," suggested Bones.

"What? You think that they'd know something the cops don't?"

"Unlikely, but they will be talking about what they do know. That's their job, after all."

"Ooh. Good idea!"

They zoomed over to a nearby reporter, whose crew was just starting to get ready to film. They waited impatiently. At least, Youngblood did. He jiggled and bounced and made faces at the reporter.

"Hello!" said the reporter, finally. "I'm Harriet Chin for Amity News, reporting from the site of the attempted assassination of our own mayor, Vlad Masters by a sniper in one of these buildings. Mr Masters was not hit, thanks to the swift and heroic actions of Daniel Fenton, who had been receiving a scholarship from Mr Masters at the time. Mr Fenton, however, was shot, and brought to South Mercy Hospital. We are currently waiting for word on his condition..."

Youngblood floated off, no longer particularly interested in what the reporter had to say. No longer wanting to hear what the reporter had to say. She had said the forbidden, most hated word. _Hospital._ Youngblood hated hospitals. He wasn't scared of them, he had spent too much time in them to be scared, but he hated them.

And Phantom had been sent to one? He'd been hurt that badly?

Youngblood barred his teeth. He didn't like that, didn't like the idea of that. But it couldn't be _that_ bad, right? He had to see.

South Mercy. He knew where South was, right?

"Come on!" he said, zooming away.

The hospital, to Youngblood's dismay, was surrounded by minor and not-so-minor ghosts shrouded by low-level invisibility. Phantom must really be hurt, for them to be acting like this. There weren't any children among the ghosts that he could see, though, so it wasn't like he could just ask what was going on. No one would be able to see him, and he wasn't interested in talking to humans right now.

Flying through the crowd of ghosts was like flying through a sea of whispers. They were angry. No, they were furious.

"Their lord has been wounded," said Bones, voice low.

"Their lord?" asked Youngblood, curling his lip. "Phantom's a _lord?_ "

"It's a technical term. He is the lord, and they are the vassals, although they might call themselves something else. It's a relationship, not entirely unlike what you and I have." Bones settled on Youngblood's shoulder. "He protects them, lets them stay in his haunt. There are certain obligations that go along with that, even if Phantom does not demand them."

"Obligations?"

"Duties, commitments."

"Heh, you said 'duty.'"

They located the room around which the most ghosts were located, and slipped in. Phantom was there, in a bed, trapped beneath tubes and wires, just like-

Youngblood fled the hospital. It wasn't because he was scared. It _wasn't_. But he couldn't be there anymore. He had to leave. He had to.

He didn't know what to do. He had to talk to someone about this. Someone other than Bones.

Ember. He'd talk to Ember.

.

.

.

The ghosts of Amity Park swirled around the hospital in a ghostly analogue of human pacing. There were all kinds of ghosts there. Blobs and will-o-the-wisps. Ghosts of dogs, cats, birds, tigers, rats, foxes, bats. Ghosts of men and women. Ghosts that had been born ghosts, or who had never been born at all. Little goblins. Pixie people. Elves and fae things. Monsters of myth and legend. None of them were particularly strong on their own. In fact, most of them were on the weak side for ghosts. Even the very strongest was only on par with the Box Ghost. Many of them struggled to make themselves seen or felt by humans. That's why they had sought protection from Phantom in the first place, why they chose to reside in Amity Park.

But that wasn't why they loved him. They loved him because he cared. Because he loved them first. Because he deserved it. Because he was precious, and soft, and lovely. Because he _needed_ love. Because he belonged to them, as much as he belonged to the humans of Amity Park.

That someone hurt him... That someone here hurt him... Hurt him this badly, and not even in a proper _fight..._

It didn't just make them furious. It made them incandescent.

.

.

.

One of Vlad's duplicates glanced out a window, and all of him froze.

He had known of the other ghosts that called Amity Park home. Being one of them, how could he not? He usually paid little attention to them. They were weak. Nonentities, like the Dairy King, who nonetheless managed to avoid Vlad's attempts to evict him. Annoyances. True, Vlad could have put them to use, great use, had they been loyal to _him,_ and he was the most powerful ghost in Amity Park, but they favored Daniel for some incomprehensible reason.

Well, maybe not so incomprehensible. Daniel had never understood power, had never bothered to learn how to exert it, how to use it for his benefit. Daniel never asked anything from them, despite the traditional obligations he was owed.

But just because Daniel didn't ask, didn't mean he didn't receive. Vlad, unlike Daniel, was very aware of what had happened to the missing GIW agents. Weak these ghosts might be on their own, but when they acted together...

Vlad's mouth felt very dry. Surely, they wouldn't blame him for this. He had been the intended victim! He would have stopped this if he had known!

He shook himself. He had nothing to fear. Even together, these ghosts wouldn't be able to hurt him. Still.

But perhaps... Perhaps he could use this. Yes. The ghosts circling angrily around the hospital were out for blood, yes, but the blood of the ones responsible for Daniel's injury. Not Vlad's. Well, as it so happened, Vlad had a bone to pick with the perpetrator himself, and he doubtless had more information than the pathetic specters outside.

A thin smile spread across his face.


	5. Chapter 5

He collapsed on the bed of his hotel room, exhausted. Work hadn't gone well. It hadn't gone well at all. He'd had bad days before, sure, but this one had been especially miserable.

He rubbed a hand down over his face, and groaned. At least this hadn't been a freelance commission. Then again, he never would have taken this as a freelance job. Amity Park was too small. Too insular. Too isolated. Without company resources, he wouldn't ever have managed.

The phone rang. The phone that he always kept on. The company phone.

He answered. "Tim, here," he said.

"The client tells me you weren't able to fix the printer."

"No, ma'am," said Tim. "There was a complication."

"I understand that you broke one of the parts."

Beads of sweat started to form on Tim's skin. "Yes, ma'am."

The woman on the other end of the line exhaled. "You recall that we have a limited number or replacement parts for this printer."

"Yes, ma'am."

"That it's a _custom_ printer?" prompted the woman.

"Yes, ma'am, I know."

"I don't need to remind you of our lifetime warranty?"

"No, ma'am," croaked Tim.

"Or our other guaranties?"

"No, ma'am." He inhaled and braced himself. "I will fix this, ma'am. I'll get the job done. No need to send another repairman, I can do it on my own."

"We're sure you can," said the woman. "That's why we sent you." Another pause in which Tim's heart thudded uncomfortably in his chest. "We're sure you'll complete the job. Successfully. And quickly."

"Yes, ma'am," said Tim. He wasn't at all sure of those things. He'd had a rare window of opportunity today, and he'd screwed up.

"Good," said the woman, and hung up.

Tim dropped the phone back on his bed, and curse under his breath. He'd had _such_ a good chance today. His 'printer' was surprisingly difficult to 'fix,' for something without 'double-sided printing.' Then that kid- How had that kid even seen him? He had scoped out the area days in advance. He wouldn't have been able to make himself out from the stage, and he had 20/10 vision!

He groaned. He'd have to find his way around increased security, on top of everything else.

.

.

.

Youngblood knocked on the door to Ember's lair. Even he knew better than to just burst in.

The door swung slowly inward, creaking invitingly. Youngblood floated forward, making a face at all the hot pink decorations. He could dig the neon blue, but the pink reminded him a little too much of Walker's prison, and the one time the warden had managed to catch him, despite his natural invisibility towards adults. Phantom had actually been the one to break him out that time.

Ember's lair was styled like a large auditorium, complete with sloping ceilings, box and balcony seats, and labyrinthine connecting hallways. At least, Youngblood assumed that was complete. He'd not had a lot of chances, either in life or afterlife, to go to auditoriums _other_ than Ember's.

A few melancholy notes wafted towards Youngblood from behind the dark, velvet blue curtains drawn across the stage.

"Ember?" called Youngblood.

The curtain's rings clattered, rattle-snake threatening, then fell utterly silent as the curtain parted, revealing Ember sitting cross-legged under a dust-filled spotlight.

"Hey there, Cap'n Kid," she called, her voice echoing like all ghosts' did. She struck another chord on her guitar, before stilling the strings with the flat of her hand. "What's up, you look kinda blue, and not in a good way, like me."

"Phantom's in the hospital," he blurted out.

Ember frowned. "What?"

"He got _shot._ "

"Tell me more."

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.

.

Jazz walked into the room, and froze. There, lying on the bed, hooked to machines that beeped and hummed, was her brother. Standing next to him, staring down, was her brother.

She closed the door behind her quickly.

"Are you dead?" she asked her brother's ghost.

He didn't look away from himself. " _No more than usual,_ " he said. He didn't move his lips to speak, and the words curled inside Jazz's brain, meanings layered and shifting. _Not really,_ echoed the words. _Yes, as always,_ they said. _Halfway there. One foot in the grave._

His form shifted, too. Or... Not shifted. It wasn't like he was _glitching,_ either. He wasn't like a buffering video, he wasn't like TV static, or a bad video. He was blurred around the edges. Uncertain. Too dark and too dim and too bright. His shadows were holes and stars shone through, and he wasn't entirely there. He was transparent, and he would, disappear if she looked too long, too closely. He was hard to look at, and was clearest with averted vision.

Jazz took a deep breath, and took a step forward. "Danny, what's happening?"

" _Trying,_ " he said. _Attempting. Assaying. Experiment. Necessity._ He flickered. " _Not ready._ "

He turned to face her. His skin was a delicate blue, his eyes were solid green.

Jazz put her hands on his shoulders, and didn't flinch when one met ice and the other fell through. "Danny," she said. "You don't have to do this."

" _Yes,_ " said Danny. _Need to. Protect. Defend. Danger. Help._

"Danny, you've just been shot. We're fine. We're safe. Let _us_ take care of _you_. Please. At least for today."

On the bed, Danny inhaled sharply. The Danny standing in front of her looked down. " _I'm scared._ "

"I know. It's okay," said Jazz.

The image in front of her shuddered, and then leaned forward, into her collarbone, his hairs tickling her chin. Something shuddering touched her mind, something afraid.

"It's okay," she repeated. "It's going to be okay. It's okay to rest."

" _You'll get hurt._ " That thought was weaker, harder to interpret, but confident. Danny knew it to be true. " _He'll hurt you. He'll hurt other people._ " _Have to help. Have to protect. Danger. Threat._

"You saw who shot you?"

" _Yes,_ " said the ghost.

Jazz sucked in her lips. "Tell me what he looked like," she said. "I'll see what I can-" She broke off. "I'll take care of it."

" _Be safe?_ "

"Yes," said Jazz. "I promise."

.

.

.

Danny had taught Jazz how to get in touch with the ghosts of Amity Park, just in case. Danny did a lot of things 'just in case.' Jazz had labeled it as paranoia at first, but considering all the people out to get him...

She shook herself out of the thought, and focused on where she was walking. Not productive right now. Not here, in the dark, more than half of the streetlights taken out by ghost fights.

She stopped in front of an abandoned house. The last people to live here had left after the ghost attacks had started, and hadn't managed to sell it. Its windows were boarded up, but, otherwise, it was in surprisingly good condition for a abandoned house.

Maybe that was because it wasn't abandoned. It was haunted. Twice over. The Webs had taken up residence in the house the first Halloween after the portal opened. They were Obsessed with holidays and hospitality, and you couldn't do either of those things properly (in their opinion) without a house. Danny hadn't seen any reason to kick them out.

Jazz walked up the steps (overgrown, but stylishly so) and knocked on the door. "Mr Web? Mrs Web? It's Jasmine Fenton. I have something to tell you."

The door creaked open.


	6. Chapter 6

Outsiders would have thought the gathering very strange. Dozens of ghosts, including several of those who routinely terrorized Amity Park. Three teenagers (not counting the ghostly ones). A billionaire. All crammed into a sitting room decorated in _layers_ of chintzy Halloween decorations.

It was the middle of summer.

"The bullet was just _coated_ in anti-ghost stuff?" repeated Jazz. "It was otherwise a normal bullet? You're sure."

"Of course I'm sure," said Vlad, sneering. The rest of the room shifted, and the hostility left a heavy tasted on Jazz's tongue.

This was just one of Vlad's duplicates. He was in protective police custody on the other side of town. Attacking him would do no good, but several of the ghosts felt like he was trying to take advantage of Danny's injury, like he was using this as an excuse to put himself in a position of power over them, to start trying subtle strings of control. There had been a whisper, early on, about allowing the assassin to finish his job, before they punished them.

It had been quickly shut down, but the resentment had lingered.

"Okay," said Jazz. "I can get a list of people FentonWorks sold that kind of stuff to, and you can get the lists from your companies, right?"

"Yes," said Vlad, flicking a bit of glitter off his sleeve.

"Great," said Jazz. She scanned the crowd of ghosts. "You've got Danny's description and the police sketch they got from the office workers. But he might have been using a disguise," she cautioned, "so check first. We don't want to hurt someone who wasn't involved."

The weaker ghosts bobbed eagerly. The better formed ones were more reserved with their approval. Danny 'enemies' (Jazz was tempted to call them 'frenemies' at this point) just glared at her.

"Do try to get some information before you turn him over to the police, too," said Vlad. He smiled nastily. "The man is likely just a contractor, after all. I think we want the person who hired him as well."

One of the Amity Park residents tilted back her head and laughed, showing off a second smile cut into her throat. The laughter cut of without warning, then another ghost, in a deep and broken voice, said, "We've been haunts since before you were born. _We'll manage._ "

If she had thought Danny's voice had been chilling...

.

.

.

Jazz, Sam, and Tucker, jogged down the steps, bidding farewell to the Webs as the ghosts flew out of the house at all angles.

"Do you think they'll really turn the guy over to the police?" asked Tucker.

"Not a chance," said Jazz.

"Do we care?" said Sam, a distinct snap in her voice.

Jazz thought about it for a minute. "Not really," she turned towards FentonWorks. "Come on, we've got to get those files."

"Do your parents really have anti-ghost weapon coatings that can _poison_ Danny?" asked Sam.

"God, you have no idea."

.

.

.

"Are we really going to hand this guy over to the human police?" complained Youngblood. He was wearing a sharp suit, and having trouble deciding whether or not to be a detective or a secret agent.

Ember scoffed. "Not a chance," she said.

"Not a chance, what?" demanded Skulker, bristling.

"Not a chance that this guy'll get away, that's what," said Ember. She had abandoned the attempt to act as a go-between for Youngblood and the older ghosts a while ago.

"Of course not!" said Skulker. "He has the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter on his tail. He won't last a day!"

.

.

.

Vlad rolled his eyes once more as he flew away, angling himself towards his home and his underground lab. After all the... excitement of the day (he refused to call it emotional upheaval, or admit that he was emotionally exhausted), he could only maintain one duplicate. His machines should have finished analyzing the composition of the bullet's coating by now, which would tell him whether or not the coating had been one of Axion Labs, VladCo, or Dalv's products. Personally, he doubted it. He didn't sell things that could be used against him.

Still, it might help narrow down which of the Fenton's products it had been. Assuming the oaf hadn't just thrown together a bunch of chemicals, shaken it up, and given it away with no record to speak of. It would be just like him. The man had no business sense.

It was also possible, though highly unlikely, that the coating could have been produced by another company, or even made by the assassin himself. That would complicate things. For one thing, if the coating had been acquired from one of their companies, the assassin would have a limited supply. If they made their own, on the other hand...

Vlad sighed. He couldn't imagine why a spectrologist or occultist would try to kill him, especially one who was actually competent. He _funded_ a most of them, for goodness' sake. He'd even thrown a grant or two in FentonWorks' direction.

The assassination attempt had to be related to money, though. Most likely one of his businesses. His will left his fortune to Daniel, although no one but his lawyer knew it, and he hadn't given anyone else a reason to think that he'd leave anything to them. Perhaps control of a business was the motivation. That's what the police were looking into.

Revenge, he admitted, was another motivation. Although Vlad hadn't, as Daniel and his friends sometimes assumed, ever used his powers to _force_ someone to sell a business to him, or to steal outright. The most he was guilty of was extreme corporate espionage and insider trading. Which, he supposed, was bad enough. It was possible that someone from his early, clumsy days had put things together.

He phased down through his mansion, coming to rest in his secret laboratory. The light on the machine was blinking green. He smiled, pleased to finally get to some kind of an answer, and strode to it. He pressed a button, and the results appeared on the screen. He read them. Reread them. Frowned.

"That can't be right."

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.

.

Jazz and Sam rifled through boxes of paper files as Tucker searched the Fentons' computer system.

"Why do your parents have so many ghost poisons?" asked Sam.

"Do I really need to answer that? Most of them don't work, anyway."

"I found invoices!" said Tucker. "Most of them, are, um, to people like the Groovy Gang and the GIW, though. I don't really think that those guys would try to assassinate Vlad like that. The GIW could just arrest him, after all."

"Print it out anyway," said Jazz.

"Okay," said Tucker. "Hey, uhm. You said you talked to Danny."

"Yes," said Jazz, clipping the end of the word. "I told you what he said." She hoped that would end this thread of conversation. She didn't want to talk about it. She was having enough trouble keeping things together.

"Yeah, but how did he, you know, seem? How was he?"

Jazz's hands stilled. "He was... not good," she admitted. Her eyes hurt. "He's scared. He looked scared."

They fell silent. All three knew that Danny was often scared, but he rarely showed it.

"Hey," said Sam, frowning at a sheet of paper, "this isn't an invoice, or a sales record, but I think you should take a look at this."

Jazz and Tucker peered over Sam's shoulders. "Your parents are crazy," said Tucker.

"I agree," said Jazz. She paused. "In their defense, they don't know about Danny, or they probably would be more, uh, cautious."

"If you say so," said Sam, clearly dubious. "Anyway, this is the right kind of thing, I think."

"Yeah," agreed Jazz. "I think you're right."

"But do you really think it's one of them?" asked Tucker. "None of these guys has any reason to try to kill Vlad."

"That we know of," corrected Sam. "I don't even know who half of these people are."

"That's not quite true," said Jazz, slowly. She brought a finger up to rest on one name. "We all know who this is, and he definitely has a reason to dislike Vlad."

"Oh," said Tucker. "Yeah, I guess I could see that, but how would he know that Vlad's a ghost?"

"Well, he's not an idiot," said Sam. "And I think he was supposed to have some mafia connections or something like that. According to my parents, anyway." She shrugged, demonstrating her lack of confidence in that particular source.

"It still might not be him," cautioned Jazz. She licked her lower lip. "We didn't really talk about this before, but do you think that we should go to the police before, you know..."

"Relying on vigilante ghost justice?" said Sam, raising an eyebrow.

Jazz nodded.

"No."

Jazz nodded again. "Good," she said, after a moment.


	7. Chapter 7

Tim pushed away from his desk, and rubbed his eyes. Even professional 'printer repairmen' got could suffer from eyestrain. Earstrain, too. He removed the earphones that were hooked into his police scanner, and closed his laptop. He'd spent... He looked at the clock and winced. He'd spent all night trying to figure out where his 'printer' was located, and whether or not he could get at it. He'd been using company resources, of course, information he would never be able to get on his own.

None of it had been much help. The Amity Park police were surprisingly secretive and secure for such a small town. His computer guy hadn't been able to get into their machines at all. Although, that point might have been moot. Tim didn't know if the APPD even kept that kind of information on their computers, or if it had been long enough for someone to think to put it there, amid all the chaos and urgency.

He knew that Vlad Masters had been at the hospital this, no, the previous afternoon, while the _complication_ was in surgery, but that he had left shortly afterward. That was it. That was all he knew. Even after working through the night, that was all he knew.

He stood up, pausing to look in the mirror. Yes, he looked different enough, after shaving his hair. He didn't think anyone had seen him, yesterday, but he always liked to play these things safe. A reckless employee was one that got fired. Terminated. The company didn't want anything to do with hotheads.

The hotel room door creaked loudly when he opened it, and made an even louder sound when he closed it. He walked down the hall to the vending machine. He wanted a soda. Maybe some Fanta, or a creme soda. Ice, too.

Or maybe something with a bit of a higher caffeine content. An energy drink, perhaps. No, it would be better to sleep. He'd sleep, and approach the problem with fresh, non-gritty eyes.

The lights in the hallway flickered. Tim came to a cautious halt, looking behind him. Nothing. He scowled. He hoped the hotel's power issues didn't affect his laptop, or any of the rest of his specialty equipment. Or the vending machines. Stupid cheap hotel. It was good cover, but he hated the little inconveniences.

The vending machine and ice machine were nestled in the turn-off before the stairs. It didn't have any energy drinks, so he thankfully wasn't tempted. He inserted a couple of dollars and punched in the code for a Fanta. The lights flickered again, and, when they came back on, his soda was stuck.

He hit the machine, hoping to shake it loose. Over the thump, he heard something like laughter. He froze at the unexpected sound. When it didn't return, and when he didn't see anyone out in the hallway, he relaxed. It was probably just another guest in one of the rooms, or down another hallway, not someone laughing at his expense. The walls here weren't paper, but they weren't soundproof either.

He gave the machine another shake, knocking the bottle of soda loose. Then he scooped up a cup of ice from the ice machine, and started to walk back to his room.

Either Tim had picked up a chill from the ice in his hand, or the power outages had messed with the hotel's AC, because it was getting cold in here now. He was almost shivering. No, he was shivering. His breath came out as a fine, visible mist. What the hell? That temperature change was way too abrupt to be natural. He tucked his soda into the crook of his elbow, and put his hand on the tool he always carried.

After a minute, the temperature stabilized again, and Tim shook himself. He was clearly overtired. Shaky. Easily spooked. The police weren't going to attack him by messing with the _air conditioning._ Not even in this weirdo town where everyone believed in ghosts. He rolled his eyes. It wasn't like the company had any competition in these parts, either. Certainly no one who would want to go after him, personally. Tim always made sure to keep up good relations with everyone he met in the business.

He walked the rest of the way back to his room. If he walked a little slower than he usually did, checking the corners, who could blame him? There wasn't anyone to see him.

When he did reach his room, he stopped, frowning at the door. It was probably nothing... But the hairs on the back were standing up, and he hadn't lived this long in the business without being cautious, even if he did take care to keep up good relations with his coworkers.

He put his ice and soda down on the floor next to the door, and after double checking to make sure no one was in the hallway, took out both his keycard and his 'tool,' a nice, small, semi-automatic handgun with a custom grip.

He opened the door, and entered with the gun at the ready. It was, of course, empty. Nevertheless, he checked the bathroom, the closet, and even under the bed, desk, and sofa. He found nothing out of place. Satisfied, he put the weapon away and retrieved his soda and ice.

As soon as he shut the door behind him, the lights flickered again. He dropped the soda, and scrambled for his gun. He could have _sworn_ he saw-

But there was nothing. Was he losing his mind?

The lights went out. This time, they stayed out.

A dozen pairs of glowing green eyes stared at him from the shadows.

"See?" said a cold, deep, _metallic_ voice. "He didn't even last a day!"

.

.

.

Vlad's phone rang. "What?" he demanded, harshly. He might not need to sleep as much as a normal human, but at this point he'd been awake for almost twenty-four hours. Twenty-four very stressful hours. It was wearing on him.

"We found him," said Skulker, voice tinny over the line.

"You did?"

"Of course I did!" said Skulker. "I'm the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter! And the amateurs weren't completely useless. They made a very nice search net."

"Have you questioned him?" asked Vlad, eagerly. "What did he say? Why did he try to kill me?"

"I didn't question him," said Skulker. "That's not my area of expertise. Ember on the other hand," the ghost laughed, darkly, "she is as persuasive as she is beautiful." A pause. "I suppose the ghost child's minions were moderately useful with that as well."

"What. Did. He. Say," ground out Vlad.

"Ember says you're being pretty offensive by assuming that it's a guy," said Skulker. "I think I agree, I mean, females are much more d-"

"Daniel _described_ a man, you-!" Vlad took a deep, shuddering breath. "Skulker, don't make me come down there."

"Alright, alright," said Skulker. "Well, first off, he's a professional. Someone took out a hit on you."

"I had guessed as much," said Vlad.

"Who hired him?"

"He doesn't know," said Skulker. "He seems to have received the job through some kind of intermediary. He calls them the 'company.'"

Vlad frowned. That was an extremely generic name.

"They masquerade as a printer repair business."

Vlad's face cleared. That was a much better clue.

"We've found his weapons," continued Skulker. "He had eleven more bullets. They aren't poisonous to the touch, but we can't phase through them, or phase them through things."

Vlad nodded. "Bring them to my lab."

"And the assassin?"

"See what else you can get out of him," said Vlad. "Record everything, then send the recording to me and to the police. After that... Well, as long as he never threatens me or Daniel again, I don't really care. Use him for one of your hunts, or give him over to Daniel's people. I'm sure they'd be thrilled."


	8. Chapter 8

It was easier for Vlad to meet up with the three children than the other way around, so that's what he did.

"What did you find?" he asked.

"You first," said Sam.

"I found the assassin," said Vlad. "As well as the composition of the coating on the bullet."

"You found the guy who shot Danny?" asked Jazz. "Where? Who was it?"

Vlad waved a dismissive hand. "He was staying at the Best Western, and he was a professional from out of town. The issue is the person who hired him, as they clearly know of, or at least suspect, the existence of half ghosts."

"Yeah, okay," said Tucker. "So who did it?"

Vlad deflated. "I don't know," he said. "The assassin was hired through a third party. An intermediary. A middle man." He straightened. "However, the coating was actually made from a mixture of one of my formulas and one of Maddie's formulas." He pulled out a sheet of paper. "My formula provided the ecto-hardening agent, and the type one phaseproofing, whilst Maddie's provided the liquid ectoplasm reaction and the type two phaseproofing. We need only cross reference the list of people who bought my formula, with those who bought Maddie's."

"Unless the stuff was also bought by intermediaries," pointed out Jazz. "If it was me, that's what I'd do."

"Well, yes. That's true. Still, the culprit will at least be connected to a person on each list."

"There's another issue," said Tucker. "No offense, Jazz, but your parent's record system is awful. Their formulas are all in alphabetic order, and you know how they name things."

"How _Jack_ names things," corrected Vlad.

"Whatever," said Tucker. "Do you know what they wound up calling the stuff?"

"... No," said Vlad, after a moment.

"I don't think that matters, anyway," said Sam. I think his description matches what we were looking at earlier." She looked around the lab, which was more of a disaster area than usual. It looked like it had been the site of a paper explosion, followed by a tornado, followed by the detonation of a glow-stick bomb. "There it is. Any of these guys on your list?"

Vlad took the offered sheet of paper. "Jack and Maddie gave away _free samples_ of ectoweaponry? To these people?"

"Yeah, well, it was the Fenton Foamer, and no one was taking it seriously, so..." Jazz trailed off. "They basically forced it on anyone in charge of buying stuff. You know how they are

"How _Jack_ is," insisted Vlad. "Maddie would never act like that on her own."

"Sure, whatever," said Jazz. "Recognize anyone? Specifically, someone who might want you dead?"

"And who supposedly has organized crime ties. According to my parents."

Vlad looked at the list. "Actually," he said. "Yes."

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.

.

Tim had lost it. Lost his mind. Lost control. Lost _everything_.

There were _things_ inside him. Behind his eyes, under his skin. They moved him, stretched his skin and face, buzzed horribly. They spoke, but not with his voice. Not with _just_ his voice. They were stealing that, too. They were taking everything.

They made it quite clear _why._ He had made a mistake. He had hurt that child, their child, and they were...

Angry.

He was pushed back, out of the driver's seat of his own mind, but he could see. See everything, and _understand._ They were going to kill him. They were going to destroy him. But first, they were going to get rid of as much of the company as possible. Just to be safe. Just for revenge. And they were going to use his mind and body to do it.

His mind, his body, and a massive stack of letters on hotel stationary. After these _things_ killed him, the police would have evidence, no, proof positive, that the company existed.

It was terrifying. He would never have thought that the company would end this way.

"Are you sure you want to do things this way?" asked the thing with hair made of blue fire.

"Yes," hissed the things inside him with the voice that was his but not.

"You don't want to go shoot the place up?"

"This is easier," said one thing. "And more efficient," said another. "We aren't fighters, not like you," a third added. "It isn't really one place. The police will be more thorough, with evidence."

"Whatever floats your boat."

.

.

.

"So we're pretty sure it's him," said Tucker.

"Yes," said Vlad. "He is the only one on these lists who has the real motive, to begin with. And Samantha-"

"Call me that again, I dare you."

"-is correct that he has organized crime connections. I discovered their existence during my initial mayoral campaign."

"You mean you actually did research? I thought you just overshadowed everyone and called it a day," said Sam.

Vlad rolled his eyes. "I''m not a cartoon villain."

"You're still a villain."

"Not as much as this man," said Vlad. "Once I took office, I discovered that he had been using the mayor's office to launder money for his associates." He curled his lip. "I was never involved in such things."

"Whatever," said Jazz. "How are we going to handle this? There's no way we should have known what the coating was. There's no legal way we could have gotten hold of a sample of it."

"We?" said Vlad, tilting up the end of the sentence delicately. "You three won't be getting anywhere near this man. You're children. I'll take care of it."

All three teenagers glared at Vlad.

"We- We fight ghosts, Vlad. All the time. We're not incompetent," said Jazz. "We fight things who want to kill us all the time. Literally all the time. We don't need to be sheltered."

Vlad smirked. "Actually, you do." Vlad lifted up off the floor, and transformed. "Not that you have any choice in the matter. You don't know where he is. Go back to the hospital. Doubtless, Daniel will appreciate you being there when he wakes up."

He flew up through the ceiling.

"That _jerk._ "

.

.

.

Now Vlad had a dilemma. He could, of course, just give the police an anonymous tip, but would that be enough? Unlikely. Add to that, Vlad wasn't sure what _would_ be enough. Add that to the problem of him knowing, or at least suspecting, Vlad's ghostly nature... But the thought of actually killing the man was distasteful in the extreme.

Vlad had never killed a person. There was just... There was something wrong with the whole idea. Even the thought... He had never seriously intended to kill Jack, after all. Seriously humiliate him, yes, but kill him? No, never. Killing was going too far.

But he needed to get rid of the man. Get rid of him thoroughly. Vanish him. He was too much of a threat, and not just for him, but for Daniel.

How could he do that? Bribery obviously wasn't going to be enough. Vlad couldn't overshadow him forever. Blackmail wasn't going to be a defense, either. He had much more damaging information on Vlad than Vlad had on him.

But how to do that?

He paced back and forth in the bedroom of the safe house. He had dissolved his duplicate some time ago. He probably should have been taking the time to sleep, even if the room and bed were horribly shabby by his usual standards. It had been far too long since he had last slept.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. If only he had a secret prison on a deserted island somewhere.

Wait.

He smacked himself in the face. Of course. He was an idiot.

Wearily, he spawned a new duplicate. He had to go talk to Walker. He was sure the ghost had room in his prison for one ex-Mayor Ernesto Montez.


	9. Chapter 9

Danny hadn't woken up yet. It had been a week since the shooting, and he hadn't woken up. The doctors didn't know why. Vlad didn't know why. There wasn't any reason he shouldn't wake up, according to them. The injury hadn't been that bad. He just wouldn't wake up.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. He had done that weird out-of-body projection... thing a few times since then. Only for Jazz, for some reason, and he hadn't been exactly _lucid_ any of those times, but he had done it.

People were starting to notice that Phantom was missing. There hadn't been too many attacks. Most of the Amity Park regulars had a weird kind of code of conduct. They would keep chaos at a minimum until Danny woke up, or until he'd been unconscious for so long they felt like it didn't matter anymore. Or until they forgot.

Danny was no longer in the ICU, and multiple visitors, as well as non-family visitors, were now allowed. Sam and Tucker had come once a day since then. Jack and Maddie were taking turns sleeping at the hospital. They wanted at least one person there when Danny woke up.

Except 'when' was rapidly becoming 'if.'

A small bright point was that Vlad hadn't come back to the hospital. He was still under protective custody. Apparently, the previous mayor of Amity Park, Ernesto Montez, had gone missing, and a man named Timothy George had jumped off a building after writing a confession detailing his work as an assassin.

Jazz wasn't entirely sure she approved of that last solution. It felt a little dirty. Or, more accurately, like it _should_ feel a little dirty. Like Jazz should feel guilty about her part in it.

She didn't. It wasn't like Timothy George had died, anyway. The building he had jumped off of had been too short. He _was_ being haunted pretty horribly, though, and he would likely never walk again.

She didn't feel bad about that, either, honestly. It served him right, for hurting her little brother. Jazz wondered if she had picked up a little bit of ghostly vindictiveness.

"I'm going to head to the cafeteria," said Maddie, jolting Jazz out of her contemplation. "Do you need anything, sweetheart?"

"No," said Jazz. "I'm fine. I ate just before coming."

Maddie gave Jazz a thin smile. "Alright. I'll be back soon."

Jazz sighed, and tried to return to her book. 'Return' being a loose term. She'd been on the same page, the same _paragraph,_ since she had gotten to the hospital.

She looked up at Danny, still hooked to wires and bandaged. "I wish you'd wake up," she said.

The temperature of the room abruptly dropped. Jazz leapt to her feet, ecto-gun at the ready. A temperature drop like this only happened when a ghost wanted to announce their presence. Who-?

Oh no.

"Desiree?"

The genie ghost faded into view on the other side of Danny's bed. She brushed her long dark hair out of her green-skinned face, bangles clinking. She smiled. "I've been waiting for someone to make that wish," she said.

"Get away from Danny," said Jazz, leveling the ecto-gun at Desiree.

Desiree's smile grew broader. She waved a sparkling hand over Danny. "Never say I never did anything for you children. Maybe he will remember this, next time." Desiree vanished, taking the cold with her.

Jazz cursed under her breath. Desiree was a headache to deal with at the best of times, but, more importantly, what had she done to Danny? What exactly had Jazz said?

Danny sat straight up in the bed, breathing heavily, like someone just freed from a nightmare.

"Danny?"

"Aaahh," said Danny.

.

.

.

Danny's recovery was not what he would call smooth. The bullet had left him a nasty scar and bald spot (for the moment, he had hopes that his supernatural healing would repair it), he had acquired recurring debilitating headaches and a case of insomnia, and had reacquired a stutter he thought he had seen the last of in second grade. Among other things.

Like his new-found tendency to astral project out of his body when he _did_ get to sleep. That was fun, especially since his excursions had a distinctly dream-like quality to them. It was like he was sleepwalking. So far, he'd massively freaked out both Sam and Tucker by standing or floating over them while they were asleep. And Jazz. And his parents. And Mr Lancer, for some reason. And a bunch of people in the park.

He was also a little peeved about losing so much of his summer vacation, and the fact that the ghosts had started to pick fights again. Not all of them, but enough to be annoying.

He blamed Vlad. For all of it. That was usually a pretty safe bet in general, in his life.

There were some bright spots, though. Vlad had, of his own accord, offered Danny a more robust truce, one that included Dani, and Danny's friends, and hadn't been fighting with Danny. Danny wasn't sure how long that would last, but he'd take what he could get.

Jack and Maddie had also decided not to send Danny off to boarding school. Danny probably shouldn't have been surprised about that, considering how badly he'd been hurt, how badly he still was hurt, but he'd resigned himself to it since Vlad first proposed it.

It was a relief. He wasn't sure he would have been able to hide the weird astral-projecting stuff from a roommate. Even a very inattentive roommate. As far as he was concerned, it was sheer dumb luck he hadn't done it in front of his parents yet.

Another plus was that Maddie kept making all of his favorite meals. Only one of which had come to life. This morning, she had made him a nice, hot bowl of oatmeal, with raisins.

"Thank, um, thank you, Mom," said Danny, quietly, as he sat down at the table. He moved slowly. He'd stopped getting dizzy spells just a couple of days after he woke up, but better safe than sorry.

"It's no problem, sweetie," she said, giving him a smile.

"Mh," said Danny, not trusting himself not to stutter.

Jazz slid into her seat a moment later. "Vlad's giving a massive donation to the school," she said, without preamble. She looked like she had been up for hours.

Danny frowned. "He- he's not- he's-" He bit his lip. "He's not making us, um, us wear uni- uniforms again, is he?"

"No. It's no strings attached, as far as I can tell."

"He's probably just making up for not being able to give you that scholarship, Danny."

"Mh," said Danny, doubtfully.

Maddie misinterpreted his emotion, of course. "I know you were really looking forward to going," she said patting his shoulder. "Maybe next year, once everything settles down a bit."

Danny shrugged, and went on eating his oatmeal. With luck, he would be going to that boarding school _maybe never._ He had things to do here, in Amity Park.

As he scooped up the last bite, his ghost sense went off. He rolled his eyes and pushed back from the table before walking, cautiously, to the bathroom. He shut the door and went ghost.

Oddly enough, the injuries he'd sustained in human form hadn't made it onto his ghost body, nor had any of the weird physical side effects. He stretched, enjoying a feeling of freedom, a lack of pain, and smiled.

Maybe he'd been hurt, but he would recover. In the meantime, he would cherish the fact that even his enemies had been upset when he'd been hurt. That _had_ to say something about him. Something good.

He flew up, through the house, intangible and invisible, humming as he considered battle tactics, jokes, and potential puns.

It was a great day to be alive.


End file.
